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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Tuesday's Mental Musings

I love a good debate or rousing discussion but I must admit that I tire of questions that tend to divert our individual responsibility for our happiness and balance. I tire of the blame game and the pointing the finger towards government and agencies for all the world's issues. This is not to say that government and agencies aren't part of our problems but we, people, choose to elect and/or accept those in power and in the end most of us seem to prefer to point the finger and make sources distant from ourselves responsible for our and the world's unhappiness.

Taxes, food, shelter, wages, education always seem to be top on the list of what we or others don't have. In truth when we look at the haves and have-nots by whose level of expectation are we comparing the quality and validity of our and their lives?

I am always one for a worthy cause. I donate both time and money to a number of agencies that perform the service of "saving" others but in the end I truly believe that we are each individually responsible for saving ourselves and it would be very "privileged" of me to define that salvation for anyone else other than myself. Yes, I know that there are those who have no shelter, no food, no education or means to provide themselves or their families with a "decent "life, but who am I to define what that decent life should be. Basic necessities determined by the individual accepting them aside how can I compare and contrast my and their lives when I only have the expectations of what a fulfilled American life is.

That saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" says it all. How many governments and agencies started out with positive intent only to fall prey to power play? How many individuals formed groups that have displaced the cultures and traditions of those they originally intended to help with the moral codes that they deemed proper and correct? How many times has a group in need been told how they should live, what they should believe and who they should pray to in order to win and maintain the support of their benefactors?

In the end there are still those who will have and those who will have-not but what if we were to individually question our responsibility to extend ourselves into our lives and the lives of those around us? What if we came to understand that not everyone is going to have a college education, a white collar job, a home in the suburbs or easy access to disposable income, material items and food? What if we are part of those who will not be privileged in this life time? What if we learned to ask for what we need rather than what we desire and then shared what we have without expectation of return? What if we found happiness in what we had knowing that change begins at home and that like a domino affect the support and encouragement and more importantly the example of truly being happy with what we have, who we are and how we live touches the lives of those about us and effect change on a subtle but foundational level?

I know that solutions to a good life are complex but I also believe the answer to what a good life differs for each of us and in the end I truly believe we choose to live a "good life" by how we address our lives. And in the end if we continue to place blame others for our state of "unhappiness" we do ourselves a great injustice.